Aeolus, the European Space Agency (ESA)’s wind mission, reentered Earth’s atmosphere on 28 July at around 21:00 CEST above Antarctica, with the US Space Command confirming the reentry. The reentry came after a series of complex maneuvers that lowered Aeolus’ orbit from an altitude of 320 km to just 120 km to reenter the atmosphere and burn up. Crucially, these maneuvers, the first assisted reentry of its kind, positioned Aeolus so that any pieces that may have failed to burn up in the atmosphere would fall within the satellite’s planned Atlantic ground tracks.
